Throughout his storied teaching profession, Nick Saban hardly ever shied away from a possibility to specific his ideas a couple of subject associated to school soccer.
Throughout his newest look on the “Pat McAfee Present,” the seven-time nationwide championship successful coach mentioned a number of the potential drawbacks of the brand new 12-team Faculty Soccer Playoff format.Â
Beneath the expanded playoff, the 5 highest-ranked convention champions will obtain an computerized postseason bid. The 4 highest-ranked convention champions can be granted a bye for the primary spherical. Saban recommended that the idea might lead to some unintended penalties.
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Nick Saban sits on the ESPN Faculty Gameday set previous to the NCAA soccer recreation between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Ohio State Buckeyes at Beaver Stadium in College Park, Pa. on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024.
“By giving the convention champions, once they’re not the highest-ranked groups, the bye… what it actually impacts is the trail to the championship,” he argued.
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“And when you do not seed the groups based mostly on the standard of the entire season efficiency…” he continued. “The primary seed ought to have, technically, the simplest path to the championship and that does not actually occur if you enable convention champions to get seeded within the top-four once they’re not one of many top-four groups.”
Sep 7, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; Nick Saban walks off the sphere after it was renamed in his honor at Bryant-Denny Stadium throughout halftime of Alabama’s win over South Florida 42-16. (Gary Cosby Jr.-USA TODAY Community by way of Imagn Photographs)
Final week’s slate of faculty soccer video games featured a number of upsets. Alabama misplaced to Oklahoma, Florida upset Ole Miss, and Auburn knocked off Texas A&M. Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M will all enter the ultimate week of the common season with three losses.Â
Saban argued towards three-loss groups being rewarded by making it to the playoff.Â
“I do suppose as we boil right down to this, like proper now, laborious to reward a group with three losses,” Saban mentioned. “Particularly the form of losses Ole Miss had and like Alabama’s needed to fairly .500 groups I wish to name them. Fairly common groups. You’ve acquired another groups that possibly they didn’t play the identical competitors, however they didn’t lose video games to common groups both.”
Alabama head coach Nick Saban speaks throughout NCAA school soccer Southeastern Convention Media Days Tuesday, July 19, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photograph/John Bazemore)
From Saban’s standpoint, the Georgia Bulldogs are the one potential three-loss group that must be in line for critical playoff consideration. Georgia enters their annual in-state rivalry showdown with Georgia Tech on Nov. 29 with two losses.
The Bulldogs are then scheduled to play the winner of this weekend’s Texas-Texas A&M recreation within the SEC Championship recreation in Atlanta. If Georgia drops that recreation, Saban doesn’t imagine they need to be eradicated from playoff rivalry.
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“If Georgia truly performs within the SEC Championship Recreation, they actually shouldn’t be penalized if they need to occur to lose the sport,” Saban mentioned. “They’d find yourself with three losses. I don’t suppose a group that didn’t play within the championship recreation that has two losses ought to get in, particularly in the event that they performed an excellent recreation and it wasn’t a blowout.”
Oregon remained within the high spot within the newest playoff rankings, with Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, and Notre Dame rounding out the top-5.
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